Taimu Mountain rises in Fuding, in the north-east corner of Fujian, and a Qing-era notebook of the province already sang that Taimu was famed for its Lüxueya, its green snow shoots. The mother plant of that old variety, regarded as the ancestor of white tea, still grows there, and in 2025 the FAO named the Fuding White Tea Culture System an agricultural heritage system around it. Tea gives the households of Fuding nearly seventy per cent of their income. The She people keep the tea ceremonies, and legend has it a goddess, Taimu Niangniang, found the tea on the mountain first.
White tea is the least handled tea there is. The leaf is picked, withered and dried, and that is all; Fuding's withering without roasting is listed as intangible heritage. Silver Needle is buds only. White Peony, Pai Mu Tan, is buds with their first leaves. What is now called white tea may only have come into being in the last two centuries.
The name has a story. As it is told, an official of the Western Han, Mao Yi, retired with his old mother to the hills beside a lotus pool and eighteen white peonies. One winter the peonies turned into tea trees, and the leaves he dried curled like peony flowers.
Pai Mu Tan, Organic is the white peony itself, a pale gold cup of honey and melon, the quietest tea in the shop. Peach White, Organic sets it against peach and calendula, Strawberry White, Organic and Blueberry White, Organic are the summer jug, brewed cold, and Champagne White is a toast; there is no champagne in it, the name is the mood.
